Tag: New Bedford Ma

Annually, I volunteer to drive the Salvation Army Bell Ringers from the “fort”, to their assigned stores. I also get to commute to work on my bike. This year on my new Giant Electric assist I call the Raza. (Named after the renegade space ship on the SciFi TV show “Dark Matter”).

This morning it was 24 F when I left the house. However, the sun was shining and there was not even a wisp of wind. The ride wasn’t bad at all. I felt chilled, but not cold. Because I’m a regular on this route I know the bridge opening times and I knew I was going to get caught waiting for boat traffic. I resigned myself that I would be stopped for a few minutes while a fishing boat passed through the swing bridge I cross to get to the city, New Bedford, MA. New Bedford is and has been for decades the #1 fishing port in the country. There are hundreds of these 70-90 foot boats, which explains why many of my post are ocean themed.

There was also a “huge” freighter in port unloading dozens of semi truck trailers loaded with clementines. There was quite an assembly line on the pier as truck after truck worked their way to one of the three cranes unloading their freight.

Wednesday 6 PM
Moby Dick Brewing. Corner of Union and South Water in New Bedford.

Mark your calendar for the May 3rd Wednesday night Joyful Riders. All biking skill levels are welcome, no one’ll be left behind. Expect a joyful-conversational pace of 10 mph, but the group will determine our speed. This ride will start and end at Moby Dick Brewery, Union and South Water in New Bedford. A 10 mile casual ride at a casual pace to the peninsula of New Bedford, riding over both Harbor Walks and into Fort Rodman.

We also have a friend of the Joyful Riders who is captain of Tilt Racing in Austin, TX joining us this week. Come ride with us and meet a sprint racer. He is not setting the pace so no worries.

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I took my RV to the Ford shop because of a recall notice. My camper sits on a Ford Transit chassis. I also asked for a price for an oil change and installing a trailer hitch on the front end so I could transport my bikes. My rack is the same that public buses use. It was such a nice day so I decided to ride around town while waiting for the call that the camper was ready.

When I retrieved the Transit, the dealer gave me a good price for the oil change, but his answer for the front hitch gave me pause. He said, “Ford does not make the hitch I wanted but he could get one from Camping World and install it for 3-4 hundred dollars. My pause was the he was going to get it from the place I bought the RV and my power of deduction says that I could save a bit of money by going to the source of the hitch. However…………. Camping world prices are premium. I’m going to get a quote from them but I’m not sure they will be less expensive. It sounds crazy, but in the world of RV’s, things are different. (not to mention, expensive). We’ll see. As for the recall. All the parts passed the tests and no defect was found. Naturally, the dealer replaced them.

I did have a decent ride in the city, with the sun shining, and the temps hovering around 50ish.

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My new RV doesn’t have a name yet. Wifey wants to call it the Tiny House. I have started calling it Tranny. (The RV sits on a Ford Transit chassis). We shall see which name sticks.

The Ford dealership in the city is around 8 miles from my home. That short distance made it an easy choice to bring a bike along and ride home. The recall specs to the dealer say it’s a seven hour minimum job payment and the service guys said, with a wink, wink, to count on a couple more hours tacked on to the minimum. “I’ll call you tomorrow” he said. So “Tranny” was admitted and will stay overnight for tests.

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The day began just a little bit cool. I decided to ride the 7 miles to yoga at the local Boys/Girls club. I just happened to look up and saw the wall above my bike stating that this was the third oldest club in the country. I have been going here for two years for yoga, putting my bike in the same spot and it took this long to look up.

Another long unnoticed item on a regular route is this closed gas station. So many have tried to make a go of this but the location is crap. It’s on the edge of a bridge spanning the river that opens every hour. People have always hesitated to stop here for gas out of fear of getting stuck when the bridge opens. The prices say clearly how long this place has been closed.

The ride was intended to be longer, but the weather turned sour with dropping temperatures, wind and drizzle limited me to 16 miles. I did make one more stop at a recently closed motel that was a haven for transients, pimps and people with drug problems.

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Last night was the annual South Coast Bikeway Summit in New Bedford, MA. I was asked to lead a ride for those who wanted to bike to the “bike summit”. This is my third year volunteering to do this ride. No one has ever shown up to ride with me. I got a few e-mails asking about the route and times. It was a beautiful late afternoon to ride. 38F, no wind and sunny at the 4:30 PM start. The temperature promised to hold and the wind had no intent on picking up before the 7:30 PM return ride. With all that, I wondered, “will anyone show besides Geoff?” No one did. Geoff was there, but we did not see each other before I rode off. He did call me and we were able to hook up about a mile down the road.

It was a really nice ride that took us over the new elevated walk/bike way built on top of the hurricane barrier at West Beach. The return night ride took us over the walk/bike way on East Beach. (Fort Rodman is at the point of the New Bedford peninsula that in my soccer pre season training days was a very pretty four mile loop along Buzzard’s Bay and Clark’s Cove).

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I wasn’t going to bike commute today for a couple of reasons but those are moot because I ended up riding. Withing a few hundred feet of the ride, I knew this was going to be a video bonanza. I couldn’t help but think of how many times people who don’t walk or bike miss the things I saw today.

I got my 9 mile work commute after spending time at the fitness center and eating a healthy breakfast. It got easy to not weigh myself and how that happened is beyond me. I’m really hoping for a surprising (to the good) result on Monday when I step on the scale.

Today’s video is an early morning bike commute into the city while the fog was just starting to life. As I approached the bridge, a fishing boat was just entering the harbor and the freighter across the river was just beginning to emerge out of the fog. Also a couple of shots of my peeps, the Salvation Army Bell Ringers.

Over the next two days I’m going to try to get them to do a mannequin challenge. The big challenge is going to be trying to get all of them to be still for 30 seconds.

I am in a couple of bike riding challenges which gives me the motivation to ride every day. Lots of things are going on during the early part of the day to keep me busy and off the bike. However, late afternoon and early evening has become prime time for my riding. Combine that with working on my video editing skills gives me plenty of motivation to ride into the early darkness.

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It was blustery, chilly and kind of dreary. Then I got on my bike and all that stuff faded away. I also changed the theme which is why this blog looks different. (Says Captain Obvious). I took a lot of photos but only kept a few. For instance: